A Las Vegas man with Alzheimer’s disease spent two weeks wandering around Denver before police spotted him Saturday, disheveled and starving.
It was the second time 75-year-old Judge Lombard had been picked up while trying to make a cross-country bus trip from Las Vegas to Detroit to visit his wife and his sister.
The first was on Aug. 17, after he arrived on a Greyhound bus in Denver and walked away from the depot. A Denver policeman spotted Lombard walking down the middle of the 4800 block of York Street at 11:44 p.m. in a rainstorm. The retired Las Vegas convention planner was drenched and shivering.
The officer took him to Denver Health Medical Center, where he was treated for exposure, according to a police report. He told authorities he was on a vacation to visit his relatives in Detroit.
The next morning, a social worker, following instructions given to her by Lombard’s wife, gave him a printout of a bus schedule, called a cab and showed him where to catch a taxi to the Greyhound bus depot, the report says.
Eleven days later, on Aug. 29, Lombard’s niece Pandora Coleman called and filed a missing person’s report, saying that her uncle never arrived in Detroit.
Missing persons Detective Joseph Campbell immediately organized a search.
Early Saturday morning, a Denver police officer saw Lombard walking down Peña Boulevard.
“He was starving,” Campbell said.
The police officer took Lombard to a restaurant for breakfast and returned him to Denver Health Medical Center, where he was receiving care.
“I have no idea what he has been doing. He was doing what he does, wandering,” Coleman said Saturday of her uncle’s absence since Aug. 18. “I was very concerned. I don’t want them to put him on a bus again.”
Campbell said he arranged to have Lombard flown to Detroit to avoid the risk of him getting lost again along the way.
Police contacted Lombard’s wife and notified Detroit police about his arrival time Saturday night, he said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
